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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27999786">The Krynn Institute</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/artandstarstuff/pseuds/artandstarstuff'>artandstarstuff</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Critical Role (Web Series), The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Campaign 2 (Critical Role), Essek as the Archivist, Everyone gets a statement, Gen, Rated T for Horror, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives), The Nein are Avatars, the mighty nein - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 19:15:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>17,937</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27999786</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/artandstarstuff/pseuds/artandstarstuff</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The current Archivist of the Krynn Institue, Essek Theyless, reads a series of statements about a strange group of avatars. You don’t have to watch Critical Role to get it, but it helps!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>144</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Tiger Tiger Burning Bright</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Take note beyond here is horror! Slight warnings for this chapter! CW: fire, people burning, nightmares, very VERY mild animal endangerment</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>[CLICK]</p><p>Statement of Trevor Bandet, regarding several unusual incidents following an encounter with a strange individual and his.... cat. Recording by Essek Theyless, Head Archivist of the Krynn Institute.</p><p>Statement begins.</p><p>I was right and properly sloshed the night this all started. There wasn’t any special occasion in particular, my mates just asked if I wanted to go out for some drinks, I said yes and simply... went a bit overboard.</p><p>We all did to be fair, I remember waving to them drunkenly as I left the pub and started on my walk home. It had to have been two or three in the morning, and drunk me didn’t feel like calling a cab. The walk is a bit of a blur but I remember leaning on the lamppost outside my building to steady myself, about to go in, when I saw it.</p><p>Alley cats aren’t exactly common in my neighborhood, but I would’ve remembered seeing this one anyway. It was big, like one of those exotic breeds, with this thick orange coat and  tabby stripes. It was just looking up at me, prim as anything, tail swishing. Kind of... expectant.</p><p>Now, I don’t want you to think I’m an asshole. I promise I’m not, I really like animals, but it just startled me I guess— so I just. Kind of kicked at it. More of a flinch really.<br/>
I know, I’m not proud of it, but I was drunk and it was dark and I was alone so. I kicked at the weird cat. It’s not like it sent it flying or anything, it was more like I shoved it a foot away from me with my boot.</p><p>Except, as soon as I did that and it yowled and scrambled off, I realized I wasn’t alone. The cat darted across the street and I saw  a man, standing under the opposite street lamp.</p><p>My first thought was that he was homeless and I was suddenly scared shitless. He had a bedraggled coat on and his red hair was long and filthy, like he hadn’t showered in a very long time. All his clothes hung off him and there was something like dirt on his face so I was sure he had to be a bum. He stood there stock still under the street lamp. Facing me. But his eyes. In that drunken stupor I still remember his eyes. This intense blue, like the color of— of a stove when the gas is low. Should’ve been too dark to tell his eye color. He was standing too far away, under the flickering fluorescent light, giving me this thousand yard stare.</p><p>The cat went and curled up around his ankles and looked back at me and I was struck with the realization that was his cat. I’ve heard of bums having dogs and stuff they kept with them, but never cats. But somehow I was absolutely sure that was his cat, and that he had watched me kick at it. I probably should’ve felt guilty, or apologized or something. Would it have made a difference? Could I have done anything after that, to stop what happened? What’s still happening?</p><p>I didn’t say anything. I just stood there, suddenly terrified of the weirdo across the street.</p><p>I’m not sure how long I swayed under the street lamp as he just stared at me. At some point I must’ve come to my senses because next thing I knew I was fumbling with the key to my flat and pushing open the door.</p><p>I had terrible sleep that night. I’ve had terrible sleep every night since.</p><p>The dreams are awful, but it’s the days that made me come here. A friend of mine says you document weird stuff. My days have gotten weird.</p><p>It started with my breakfast the next morning. I microwaved a spot of oatmeal, trying to cure my hangover with the smallest amount of effort. I must’ve left it in the microwave too long, or the microwave was really... strong for some reason, because I burned it. It was just blackened mush by the time I smelled the smoke and fished it out of there. I could’ve sworn I did it for the right time but it just— burned. I could’ve written that off if it was the only thing that did.</p><p>Next was a book of mine. My girlfriend has a curling iron she leaves in my bathroom sometimes, and at some point I must have left my book in there— which is weird I don’t— I don’t read in the tub, or on the toilet so I don’t know why it was in there. But she came over the next day, set it down, I heard her yell, but it was up in flames by the time I got there. I really loved that book, I’ve read it so many times but, still. I miss it.</p><p>The things that burned  kept getting worse. And bigger.</p><p>My good dish towel got set too close to the stove. A stranger ran into me and his lit cigarette caught my jacket on fire somehow, although I don’t think leather is flammable. At work my computer overheated and sparked. IT cracked the thing open and found all its insides had just melted together. ‘Design flaw’ they said. Design flaw my arse.</p><p>I tried to stop it. I quit using the stove, then the oven, and even the damn microwave. I threw out all the lighters in my house, and told my girlfriend flatly she couldn’t keep anything in my flat that could get hot. It didn’t help. Stuff kept burning, but now there was just no good excuse for it.</p><p>A birthday card, scorched black by sun from an open window. An old blanket of mine, that I left my laptop on just smoldered as if it had burst into flames and gotten too hot, despite my laptop being only warm. My TV, the screen cracking from heat, still trying to play the morning news.</p><p>I wish that was the worst part. I really wish watching all my things go up in flames one by one was the worst thing happening to me but it’s not. It’s the dreams. Well, it’s really the same dream. Every night.</p><p>I am watching my home burn. I stand in front of it, the big door that has flames licking the sides of it, trying to escape. The fire that is pushing out the shattered glass windows heating my face, making my skin tight. The smoke pouring out from the cracks in the wood burns my eyes and makes me choke.</p><p>I have never lived in a wooden house, with a big door. But I know that this is my home, and that it is burning.</p><p>I know I can’t do anything. There is no one to call. There is no one who will help me. I am alone and I am helplessly watching everything I love burn to the ground. And the noise. God the noise. I can hear screaming. I can’t describe it, not when I’m awake. I don’t think I want to. It’s more than one voice just, howling. Over the crackle of embers and the shift of the walls falling in I hear people wailing.</p><p>And I’m crying.</p><p>I know because my face feels wet, and I can see the steam rising off my cheeks as the fire gets bigger and bigger and consumes the house except for the door, and the screaming gets louder and louder.</p><p>Every night I walk forward. I don’t want to, but I do. I walk forward while I’m crying and while the fire is roaring and the people scream. I can’t do anything else.<br/>
I reach out. I turn the door’s metal handle and I feel the flesh of my palm burn and sizzle and melt against it but I do not make a sound. I open the door and the fire spills out. Like a flood. Like it was waiting. It swallows me up, and I burn for however long the dream lasts. It can feel like forever.</p><p>You would think that dream gets better every night, since I know I’m dreaming and that I’ll wake up, but it just gets worse. Knowing I cannot leave the fire, that I can’t wake up. I’ve taken to staying up late. All the coffee I make for myself is burnt.</p><p>I don’t know how that man did it. Maybe he’s some kind of wizard, you know? Who’s hiding out and pretending to be a man to... I don’t know. Punish people. Because I am sure this is his fault. The man with the cat, with the blue fire eyes and ash covered face. He’s doing this to me. My things are still burning. My floor is littered with black spots where I’ve dropped things that randomly burst into flames. I’m still having the nightmare, and waking up in a cold sweat, throat sore from breathing in smoke, eyes streaming.<br/>
I don’t know why this is happening. I’m scared. I’m sorry. I want my life back. I swear I’ll never be a prick again, never have another drink, I’ll do anything. Just make the fires stop.</p><p>I think I might be moving soon. Somewhere far. I’m not exactly sure where yet, but I want to stay away from wooden houses. I’m thinking somewhere in Central Asia. It’s pretty drastic, I don’t know the language or what kind of job I might find there but... but I hear they are not overly fond of cats.</p><p>Statement ends.</p><p>Hm... well this recording concerns me. My assistants performed the follow up for this case and did indeed find the building Mr. Bandet was staying at, and confirmed with the landlord he had numerous instances of setting off the fire alarms, to the point he needed to deactivate the ones in his apartment. It seems indeed Mr. Bandet has moved for there was... an accidental fire in his kitchen that spread to the rest of his apartment. Mr. Bandet was unharmed but he seemed to recover few if any possessions from his flat. </p><p>We could not locate him for follow up.</p><p>The man he encountered is almost certainly an avatar of the Desolation, but not one we have any record of. I cross referenced the description given of him with newspaper articles from the past several years and found something of a promising lead.</p><p>Caleb Widogast was 19 when his family farm and homestead, in the German countryside, burned down with both his parents inside. Due to the remote location, response teams were too late to arrive and save anyone. Apparently the young man, according to neighbor testimony, walked up to the door, still intact despite the burning structure, opened it, and willingly walked into the blaze. Only two bodies were recovered. There is no official cause for the fire listed in the incident report.</p><p>There are many house fires in Europe involving men with red hair and blue eyes, but the reason I decided this one was related to the statement was the picture included in the village newspaper detailing the event.</p><p>It shows Caleb and his parents, smiling in what appears to be a family portrait.</p><p>In his arms is what appears to be a large, orange, tabby cat.</p><p>End recording.</p><p>[CLICK]</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Under my Skin</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello all! Thank you so much for your lovely comments, I’m glad you’re enjoying it so far. I have most of this pre-written so I’ll try to update every two days.</p><p>SPOILER WARNING! This chapter contains Critical Role spoilers for episode 48 of the second campaign. Additional content warnings: strangers, mild body horror, disturbing language, grief over a loved one</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>[CLICK]</p><p>Statement of Yeza Brenatto concerning his wife’s disappearance and subsequent events. Recording by Essek Theyless, Head Archivist of The Kryn Institute, London.</p><p>Statement begins.</p><p>My wife went missing ten months ago.</p><p>It was just a normal day as far as I was concerned. I was headed into work and Veth was getting Luc ready for school, trying to put his backpack on him while I grabbed breakfast. We kissed. I told her I loved her, and to have a good day. She said the same.</p><p>That was the last time we spoke. When the school called and told me no one had come to pick Luc up that afternoon I knew something was wrong.</p><p>Veth could be…. Unpredictable. It was one of the things I loved about her. She would have these spontaneous little ideas that just brightened up my day. Like a picnic in the park, or just rearranging our living room on a whim. Once we took a spa trip and she just started eating the cucumbers out of the bowl and I couldn’t stop laughing. She was so weird. I loved… love her for that.</p><p> Even our marriage was sort of a surprise. We had just gotten out of high school and I was earning my chemistry degree. I had jokingly mentioned that married students got more benefits and she said I should propose to her then. Feeling brave, I did. We’ve been married for 9 years. I always felt braver with her, like I was borrowing some of her spontaneity. </p><p>But she would never leave Luc alone. That wasn’t spontaneous, that was irresponsible and even if she had an idea of something or remembered an errand she needed to run she could’ve called me. She would’ve. I know that, despite what the police said when I declared her missing.</p><p>Veth would never have left our son. Not by choice.</p><p>I tried calling her so many times but it all just went to voicemail. Then it stopped going through at all. I didn’t understand. What was I supposed to tell Luc? That his mother had vanished into thin air somewhere between getting groceries and picking up laundry?</p><p>The police didn’t find anything. Not our car, or anyone who had seen Veth at all that day. I felt like they weren’t trying very hard.</p><p>It was quiet in our house for three months. I waited. For a call, a text, even-- gods I would’ve settled for a ransom note but… nothing. Three months of sympathetic glances from the neighbors and parents at school, of Luc looking out the window waiting for her to come back.</p><p>That’s when I got the first letter.</p><p>There was no return address. No stamp either. Just my name written on it in pen, the back sealed shut, stuffed in our mailbox. It had to be a hoax, was my initial reaction. It had to be some neighbor playing a cruel trick on me or a stalker of some kind even. But it was in her handwriting. I know that handwriting. I know it in every grocery list and marking on our calendar and the note she passed me in the eighth grade that said ‘Do you like me?’.</p><p>The letter told me she was dead. It was… confusing. It rambled on, getting scribbly before finding its point again. Veth-- at least they said they were Veth-- told me several things, over and over again. She had been taken. She was okay. She had died.</p><p>I had so many questions, I wanted to find whoever wrote this, I wanted to track them down. I didn’t. Maybe I was afraid of confronting the liar. Maybe I was thinking about Luc, how he was already hurting so much about this and this would just confuse him. Maybe I was afraid that if I pushed it I wouldn’t get another letter.</p><p>They kept coming. Always the same envelope, with my name on it. No other labels. I’m always sure to snatch them before Luc sees. I hate how it feels like I’m hiding a secret.</p><p>Veth wrote me lots of things. She said she loved me. She said she missed me. She asked how our boy is and I cried over that because how could I tell her he’s fine? There are some parts of her letters I don’t understand. They scare me. She says ‘They unmade me Yeza’. She says ‘I don’t think I look like me.’ She says ‘My skin fits wrong now, because it is not mine’.</p><p>What do I say to that? She won’t tell me who did this to her, what happened, or why. But she keeps repeating that line. ‘My skin fits wrong now because it is not mine. They took my first one and did not give it back.’ I don’t know what that means. I’m scared to learn.</p><p>She talks about people she’s met. A man named Caleb. ‘He’s a nice boy,’ she says. ‘He doesn’t care that my smile is off.’ She talks about a sweet girl, she says ‘she’s tricky and laughs wrong.’ She um… doesn’t seem to have much appreciation for some guy named Fjord. ‘I don’t like the water’, is what she wrote. ‘They drowned me in it to keep my skin unbroken.’ I have no idea how those two things are related but she seemed… adamant.</p><p>She started sending packages. Plain, unlabelled, with random little things in them. She always loved collecting things, I still have all her vintage salt and pepper shakers, you know the ones that are shaped like dogs and fruits and things? I dropped one three weeks ago and cried for an hour.</p><p>The things she sends now are… strange. A shoebox full of buttons. Dolls and action figures for Luc, but most of them were broken. Half melted candles. Bags of blue cotton candy. She also sends money. I have no idea where she’s getting it or how but gods. It’s so much money. I just hide it under my mattress, I don’t know how’d I explain the influx to my bank, or the feds for that matter.</p><p>One of the latest gifts really set me off though. I’ve come to look forward to her presents. They’re so… her in an unmistakable way. This one came with a letter. It was a tiny clay cat’s paw, weirdly warm to the touch, like it’d been sitting outside in the sun all day. The letter was more specific than any other I’ve gotten. ‘Do not break this. Keep it close to your bedside. If you see something that looks like me, do not let it inside. It is lying. Throw the paw out the window towards it. Leave.’</p><p>I didn’t know what to do with that. I wanted to see my wife again, more than anything, I still want to. But Veth hadn’t said ‘if you see me again’, she had said ‘if you see something that looks like me’.</p><p>I followed her instructions. The paw sat next to my lamp and alarm clock for weeks. I nearly forgot about it until I needed it.</p><p>Luc had asked me for a glass of water. I wasn’t thrilled, it was around eleven and he was perfectly capable of getting his own water before I tucked him into bed. I knew a stalling tactic when it was being used. I’ve had trouble saying no to him lately though, and he just gave me big eyes so down the stairs I went. The cup was halfway filled when I saw her outside.</p><p>Veth was wearing the dress I’d lost her in. I remember because that morning she had spilled some orange juice on it. The stain was right below her collarbone.</p><p>She stood beneath the porch light, smiling at me through the back door, as the cup in my hands overflowed. She was beaming. She seemed so delighted to see me, her eyes wet, the smile so big it looked almost painful. Her hands were behind her back, her form twirling slightly. As if she had played a clever trick and was waiting for my reaction, her grin huge. </p><p>I don’t know how long I stood in the kitchen letting the sink run.</p><p>Eventually she raised a hand and knocked at the door. She said something I couldn’t quite hear, it might’ve been the glass, or the blood pounding in my ears. Her smile faltered for a moment, like she was annoyed. She knocked again, more insistent, she splayed a hand against the glass and spoke to me again. She kept staring but the eyes were starting to look confused, still big in her face. Still glassy like they were shining with unshed tears.</p><p>She leaned against the glass door eagerly, breath puffing up against it, fogging the area around her face. She did not blink.</p><p>I wanted to let her in. I wanted to open the door and embrace her. For a moment, I knew that if I did that, she would hug me back. She would hold me and I wouldn’t be scared, and I wouldn’t be alone, and Luc would be so happy to see her, and she’d hold him too.</p><p>But the thing at my back door was not my wife. ‘They took my first one and did not give it back.’ My wife wrote me letters, and stayed away. ‘I’m not ready yet Yeza. I don’t want you to see me while I’m wrong. I have to fix my face.’ The thing outside my back door, standing on my porch, in my wife’s skin, was everything I remembered. It was a lie.</p><p>Its hand was on the door where it had fogged it up with its breath. Droplets of moisture ran down from where she made contact. I ran up the stairs.</p><p>When I came back down, the cat’s paw in my trembling hands, the thing was angry. It was shouting at me, beating its fists on the glass door, its face gone feral and strange. The skin seemed almost tight in places where muscles should be, like it was smooth underneath.</p><p>There was a very tense moment, where I had to crack a window to toss the cat’s paw outside to break on the porch, and the thing lunged for me. It’s eyelids seemed to peel all the way back into its head, its jaw unhinging where tendons should keep it shut but instead it cracked open like a nutcracker. The bones in its hand tried to reach me before the skin did, almost pushing through it like cellophane.</p><p>I must’ve had bucketloads of adrenaline because I slammed it shut just in time. It screeched and raged against the glass. I locked all the windows while the thing screamed at me. Smoke started to rise from the tiny broken figurine I had tossed outside. The creature didn’t seem to notice, too intent on trying to break in, but finding the two layers of glass too strong.</p><p>I remembered the last part of the instructions Veth had given me and went upstairs. I went to tell Luc to go to bed but he was already asleep. I slept on the floor outside his door that night.</p><p>Based on the screaming I heard, I’m glad I followed the directions she left. In the morning, there was a small pile of greasy ashes on our back doormat. I blew them away with my leaf blower, and packed Luc up for school.</p><p>This all happened about a week ago. I heard about your institute and figured if it’s for science or research or… whatever it is you do here. I just wanted to tell someone about Veth. Someone who wouldn’t think I’m crazy, or try to have Luc taken away. I know she’s out there. I don’t know what she’s doing, or what she looks like, but at least she’s not alone. I hope she’s happy.</p><p>I know I should be more afraid, based on what she described, but her letter probably saved my life. Luc’s as well. For now I’ll wait, and be patient.</p><p>Or maybe I’ll write something back.</p><p>Statement ends.</p><p>This statement is worrying. I had my assistants cross reference the name Caleb through our available statements along with anything about cats and burning and this turned up.</p><p>Mr. Brenatto was available for comment, and stuck to his story. He showed my assistants the letters in question, and they’ve testified to their disturbing contents. Several photos were taken but they’ve all turned up corrupted. Mr. Brenatto refused to part with any of the missives for evidence purposes.</p><p>During some followup my team discovered there has been a large number of unexplained disappearances in Mr. Brenatto’s neighborhood in the past nine months. After investigation, almost all missing persons had some sort of hidden criminal background, white collar crime, drug dealing, even a supposed hitman masquerading as a retiree. All of their monetary assets however, seem to have gone missing as well. I have a suspicion of where Mr. Brenatto’s ‘gifts’ are coming from.</p><p>It seems Mrs. Brenatto has become something of an unconventional avatar of the Stranger, after being its victim. She also alludes to fraternizing with this Caleb character, which is where she undoubtedly got the artifact from. It’s an oddly generous action for an avatar to take, especially one beholden to a god who has a penchant for destroying families. Definitely strange.</p><p>My question remains however, about a certain Fjord mentioned, and his supposed connection to water. I’ll investigate that angle as far as I am able with the resources at my disposal.</p><p>One more thing possibly of note. While giving his statement Mr. Brenatto continually calls the author of the letters, supposedly his wife, Veth. However, my assistants state that every letter was signed the same. ‘Yours, Nott’. What comes after ‘Nott’ changed between the letters. Some said ‘Nott Right’ and another said ‘Nott a person’ and so on and so forth. Whatever Mrs. Brenatto has become I think it’s safe to say she isn’t a halfling anymore. I sincerely hope Mr. Brenatto does not write her back.</p><p>End recording.</p><p>[CLICK]</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. High Tide</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello again and welcome to chapter 3! CW for this chapter include: heights, vertigo, storms, lightning, very very big things, mentioned injury.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>[CLICK]</p><p>Statement by one Sabian, no last name given, regarding a former crewmate. Recording by Essek Theyless, Head Archivist of the Krynn Institute, London.</p><p>Statement begins.</p><p>The sea is damn big.</p><p>It’s bigger than anything you’ve ever seen, will ever see. Our planet is seventy percent water or something like that. Some sailors I know get misty eyed over it, get poetic. I’m not one of them. The ocean is a deep thing of water, and that’s it. I’m humbled by it understand, I’d be an idiot if I wasn’t, but I don’t love it. It’s just where I work.</p><p>I’ve been a sailor since before I was probably legal to be doing so. The pay is good, and if you mind your mouth and keep your place, you can figure out what you’re doing. Simple rules. Not hard to follow.</p><p>Fjord followed all those rules. At least most of them. My first impression was that he was new at this, not a complete novice, but if I had to guess I’d say it was the third or fifth ship he’d been on. He was a half-orc, green skin but no tusks. He had a streak of white in his hair that made him look older than he probably was.</p><p>The cargo ship we were working on, The Mist, was a monster of a thing, going into some choppy water around Norway but nothing to worry about. People were packed into sleeping quarters, two at a time below deck, like sardines in a can.</p><p>I ended up rooming with the guy, which made me his babysitter apparently. He had all sorts of questions about what we were moving, what was the ship like, who were the crew. After the fifth time I snapped at him he found someone else to pester. Or I assume he did.</p><p>The thing was it was easy to forget about Fjord. He blended into the crew just fine, he did his work, chit chatted during mealtimes. People liked him if they weren’t oblivious to his existence. Well, other people liked him. I didn’t. I don’t make a habit of liking people in general, but I had a reason with Fjord. It was his sleeping habits, or lack of thereof.</p><p>When it’s small quarters you’re very aware of your bunkmate. Especially when he leaves. I remember rolling over in bed, dim light flooding the room as he snuck out the first night, thinking he wasn’t noticed.</p><p>I wouldn’t have minded it that much, if it was just to go take a piss in the middle of the night, I wouldn’t have cared. That first time I just rolled over and went back to sleep, but it happened again, and kept happening.</p><p>Every night, as soon as Fjord thought I was asleep, he would leave, barefoot in boxers. I wouldn’t see him again until the morning, like he had been out all night. When I asked him where he went he got uncomfortable and told me he went for a walk. I didn’t let him know I had been awake when he came back to bed at the crack of dawn, and lied down, pretending to sleep just long enough for our alarm to go off.</p><p>I asked around. I knew it wasn’t any of my business, but it still nagged at me. At first I figured he was paying someone… midnight visits. Happens a lot on ships. But everyone I asked said they didn’t know what I was talking about, or that they wish they’d been so lucky.</p><p>My next theory of sleepwalking was quickly nixed, as Fjord himself had confessed he knew he was leaving.</p><p>I went and talked to people on the night shift, who had been above deck when Fjord went for his ‘walks’. They claimed they hadn’t seen him either. A half orc wandering around in his underwear under the night lights shouldn’t be hard to miss.</p><p>The biggest issue I had revolved around one simple question: How was he sleeping? He was gone all night, the few times I stayed up to listen. If he wasn’t in someone else’s bed, or god forbid on deck, where was he sleeping? In the morning, before he pretended like he had been there all night, he looked like he had climbed out of bed, sleepy but not exhausted. It was the strangest thing.</p><p>It wasn’t even that good a mystery. No one had died onboard. It’s not like he was a serial murderer going into the dark to commit crimes. No one had reported anything stolen. No vandalism or anything else illegal. So whatever he was doing had to be, ultimately, harmless.</p><p>At least I thought so until Fabian disappeared.</p><p>He was working the night shift when someone realized no one had seen him in a while. They called out. No Fabian. The morning came. No Fabian.</p><p>The captain reviewed the security tapes but couldn’t see where he went, the crew was abuzz with whispers. People still fall overboard sometimes. It’s a danger of the job, but I knew. I sat across from Fjord at breakfast as the news was delivered, watched his face turn into an expression of perfect shock. Practiced surprise.</p><p>I knew he did something.</p><p>Had he been stalking Fabian all this time, waiting for his moment to strike? Had Fabian caught Fjord somehow? Who was next? I had no idea. I should’ve told the captain. I could’ve saved myself the… I could’ve saved myself. Maybe it was pride, maybe it was rage at this strange man who kept me up at night with his secrets but I resolved to do this myself. I’d bring proof to the captain and crew.</p><p>I stole a knife from the kitchen. I went to bed early. I waited.</p><p>Like clockwork, there was a solid hour of Fjord waiting for my breathing to even out. He got up, oh so quiet, and slipped out of our room. I waited a whole minute before I followed him, retrieving the knife from under my pillow.</p><p>In the bowels of the ship there were only lights every few feet, but I could trace his footsteps, quiet and casual on the ground. I kept a good distance back, breathing and stepping as softly as I could. He reached the exit onto the main deck, and pushed the door open, going up. Again, I waited for a moment before following. I almost lost him then. I wish I had.</p><p>That night, a proper storm had been roiling. If you’ve never been on a boat in a storm, the deck tilts under your feet. Like one of those big top rides at amusement parks, where you have to lean this way and that to keep from falling over. Rain fell in sheets onto the metal deck, I could hear the night crew shouting, trying to secure a shipping container, one man short. I spotted Fjord ducking between two stacks of containers and I gave chase.</p><p>I found out why he had never been spotted by the night crew or the cameras. The route he took was dark and complicated, twisting this way and that. All the while the rain poured, the ocean churned, and the deck tilted left, right, left right, dipped and rose over the crashing waves.</p><p>I saw him climbing the control tower, and couldn’t believe it. Still don’t. We call it a control tower, but it doesn’t really control anything. It’s a huge pole, one of three on the ship, with lights attached to the top that can shine down for the night crew. The thing has metal bars welded into its sides to act as a ladder, but those are only there for maintenance. It’s almost three hundred feet tall so climbing it isn’t exactly a recreational activity.</p><p>Yet there he was, climbing up steadily despite the rain and despite the movement of the ship. God the movement. Since the waves were rocking the deck so badly, the control tower rocked with it. Huge sweeps from side to side, like a giant metronome. Plus the ship kept dipping down and rising back up over each wave. Down, up, left, right. Looking up at it made me dizzy, the vertigo of everything churning my stomach.</p><p>I waited for him to fall. He couldn’t possibly hold on, not with the rain slicking the ladder rungs, not with the waves that tilted the ship so far to the side, the control tower could’ve touched them. But I saw him go up.</p><p>And he did not come down. Tossed onto the deck or otherwise, I lost sight of him past the lights blazing, but I knew he was up there.</p><p>I was suddenly taken with the absolute and desperate need to climb that tower. It could’ve been my determination to see who was at the top of it, finally, finally know what Fjord was doing, what might’ve happened to Fabian. But looking back I’m not so sure. I’m not certain that the need to climb after Fjord was all… mine.</p><p>I stuck the knife between my teeth before I started climbing. Like a proper pirate. The first few rungs weren’t so bad, slick with rain and freezing to the touch sure, but I managed them fine. It was making sure my feet stayed on the bottom rungs that troubled me the most, my boots not built for gripping. I remember them sliding, back and forth on the rung as the control tower pitched side to side, my knuckles white on the metal above me.</p><p>I was halfway up when I looked down, and I’ve never regretted something so fast in my life. I was up so high. Not in the way you get when you climb a tree as a child, the way up short and sweet and the way down yawning beneath you. This was like looking down out the window of a sky scraper. I couldn’t have climbed that high, it was impossible. There was no way the control tower went up that far.</p><p>I think I may have screamed, because the knife fell out of my mouth and plummeted down down down. I don’t think I saw it hit the deck, no matter how much time passed as I was petrified on that godforsaken ladder.</p><p>I don’t know how long I clung there, petrified, readjusting my grip on the rain slick metal, my legs shaking and slipping for purchase. The rain pelting my face felt like freezing tears, and I could hear thunder shaking the fluid in my head.</p><p>I must’ve started moving at some point, because before I knew it I was holding the last rung of the ladder. The rain pelted at me now, lightning splitting the sky above me. It was so far and so close at the same time. The movement of the control tower was worse than ever, pitching me side to side to the point where I was almost touching the water.</p><p>I scrambled onto the very top the tower, desperate for anything flat under my feet, anything to shake the vertigo, latching onto the handrail that was affixed up there.</p><p>Then I saw him. It was the damndest thing, but I had nearly forgotten why I was up there in the first place. Fjord sat, cross legged, in the center of the platform. Eyes closed, and of all things, snoring. Despite the wild rocking of the control tower and the ship, the rumbles of thunder overhead and lightning in the distance, he was asleep. He wasn’t even sliding back and forth on the flat surface, like he was somehow affixed there.</p><p>As I looked past him, over the water, black and endless and without mercy, only then did I realize what else there was.</p><p>You’ll think I’m crazy but I know what I saw, below the boat, across the ocean, stretching to the horizon. A huge shape, long and twisting upon itself, like a giant snake lurked under the waves. I can’t describe how massive it was, the trunk of it that rested below the ship was bigger than the boat was wide, illuminated with sparse flashes of lightning.</p><p>There was no end to it, no head or tail or start or finish. Simply an awful endless thing that was choking the entire ocean.</p><p>That’s when I really lost it. I like to think I’m a put together guy, that I’m stoic, but I’ll admit it here. I started screaming my goddamn lungs out.</p><p>That’s how the crew found me in the morning. Howling like I’d lost my mind, still holding onto the handrail of the control tower. The storm was over and the sun was up, but it still took a lot of convincing to get me off of that thing.</p><p>Fjord was gone. No one believed what I told them, and I could see they suspected me in their eyes. Of Fabian, of Fjord disappearing. I couldn’t change their minds and they all thought I was nuts anyways, so I quit, got offboard next time we docked.</p><p>I know I’ll have to go back on the water eventually, it’s the one skill I’ve got, but I’m dreading it, living off my savings for now.</p><p>I have a horrible feeling that when I go back, I might end up on another ladder.</p><p>Statement ends.</p><p>I discovered this statement when checking on leads from Mr. Brenatto’s story. It is quite possible that the Fjord Mr. Sabian speaks of here is the very same that colludes with Mrs. Brenatto.</p><p>As there was no last name given here we were unable to locate Mr. Sabian for confirmation. We did however perform followup with the captain of the Mist, who happened to be docked near London at the time. He confirmed that two crew members named Fjord and Fabian went missing on one voyage and that one of his crew had a breakdown of some kind on top of the control tower. He refused to go into any further detail however, once he realized my assistants were institute personnel and not police officers.</p><p>One last note. While my assistants were interviewing the crew over the event there was an unfortunate… accident on deck. No one was killed but a deckhand named Marius was injured by a falling object while mopping near the control tower.</p><p>What the ship’s doctor removed from his arm appeared to be a kitchen knife.</p><p>End recording.</p><p>[CLICK]</p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Through the Looking Glass</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for all the feedback guys, I really appreciate it. CW for this chapter: Uncertainty, isolation, mentions of agoraphobia, paranoia, disappearances, body modification (Non magical).</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>[CLICK]</p><p>Statement of Marrion Lavorre regarding her daughter, Jester. Recording by Essek Theyless, Head Archivist of The Krynn Institute, London.</p><p>Statement begins.</p><p>Maybe if I hadn’t kept my daughter a secret, this wouldn’t have happened.</p><p>Then again, I could have done a thousand things differently when raising Jester. I should have, I still would. Your children seem to grow up so fast, don’t they?</p><p>You may think I’m a bad mother. Keeping her in the house, away from having a normal life. I am sorry I wasn’t strong. I wanted to give her the best life, the most toys, the best tutors, but I couldn’t give her normalcy.</p><p>I’m agoraphobic, meaning I have a fear of large spaces and leaving my house. I’ve had it for... Has it been decades? When did I realize I couldn’t go outside? When my house became my home became my world, everything else endless and huge? Ah, I digress.</p><p>I couldn’t take her to school, and the thought of something happening to her while she was away haunted me. So I kept her inside with me, kept her my secret. My Jester, my little sapphire. I told myself people wouldn’t be kind to her considering my profession, but that could’ve been a lie. Was it a lie when I thought it? Was it always a mistruth, or did it warp? Did it twist?</p><p>I am what you would call a dominatrix in the sense it is my profession, and not to sound arrogant but I’m rather famous by certain standards.</p><p>This meant I couldn’t give all my love to my darling Jester, as clients demanded my attention most of the time. However, she had full run of the house. The Lavish Chateau’s best kept secret. Perhaps that’s when I realized she should have been lonely. Or did that thought come after she told me about her friend? It’s so hard to put together.</p><p>She was six when she said it. “Momma, I have a new best friend,” and I said “Oh? Well who is it?” and she told me about the traveller. He wore green, and he laughed funny, and he had a magical world they could play in.</p><p>I told her that that sounded lovely. It wasn’t uncommon for children to have imaginary friends, I knew that much. I felt guilty that she had to imagine her own playmates, but I couldn’t exactly schedule sleepovers or playdates where we lived. I didn’t know any other mothers.</p><p>At what point did it become unnerving I wonder? Children often believe in falsehoods, invent their own. Don’t us adults always make their minds seem unnerving? Their laughter when they’re out of sight, their toys staring out with glass eyes, their claiming of something at the end of the hallway. Something at the foot of the bed.</p><p>Jester would never lie to me. She was simply lying to herself, harmlessly, about a new friend who couldn’t possibly exist.</p><p>She drew him for me, did I tell you this? My Jester is an excellent artist, always has been. She drew unicorns and myself and mountains and dragons and her imaginary friend. At least before she started drawing fractals.</p><p>She drew her and the traveller playing together around the house, jumping on her bed. She always gave him such… large hands. When I asked her about it she simply said ‘he can’t change that part’.</p><p>Was it then that I felt the dread?</p><p>Was it when Jester would seemingly be gone for hours, her minders unable to find her within the house before she appeared, claiming she had been playing with the traveller in ‘his magic palace’?</p><p>Was it when I would walk past her door at night and hear muffled conversation, interspersed with giggles? I told myself that there was no one else in the room, as there’s only one entrance to my daughter’s bedroom and I was looking at it, closed. I told myself the traveller was not real, as my daughter spoke in a conspiratorial tone of voice. Had it only been her voice that night? Had there been two voices? Had there been none?</p><p>I remember the lack of dread. I remember her head on my lap as I brushed her hair in a precious moment alone with her. She was ten, and her eyes were wide looking up at me.</p><p>‘The traveller told me a secret,’ she said. ‘Oh?’ I said, humoring her. ‘And what did he say?’ ‘He told me there’s a prize at the center of his maze’, she said. ‘I thought you told me it was a palace?’ I playfully corrected, my brow furrowing. ‘No Momma’. On this she was insistent. ‘It can BE a palace. It can BE a maze, and when it’s one thing it’s the other thing too.’</p><p>I didn’t understand. Was it then, that I knew I lost her?</p><p>No, it had to be when the first client went missing. Yes. The man, who’s name I will not disclose due to privacy reasons, was not a very… considerate customer. He booked up my time on purpose, was rowdy to the staff, and was rather unpleasant on the whole.</p><p>I had just informed him under no uncertain terms that I would not be exclusive to his needs and his needs only, and he was storming out. Did storm out. Through the door on the left wall of my personal quarters.</p><p>There is no door on the left wall of my personal quarters.</p><p>I stared at it, dumbfounded for a moment. I had lived in this room for years. It had never been here. It looked like it always had been, and stubbornly existed despite my knowledge that there had never been such a door in that room.</p><p>I approached it slowly. It was wooden, intricately carved like the other one, the real door. Except this one was real as well because I could feel the knots of its wood under my hands. I could feel the cold metal of the handle as my hand settled upon it.<br/>
‘Momma!’ Jester had startled me out of my moment of fancy, standing in the real doorway, the one that led to the rest of the house. I did not know where this door led.</p><p>‘Momma I want to show you the most wonderful thing,’ my daughter insisted. I opened my mouth and turned to the handle I was holding to tell her what had just happened but instead I found there was no handle. My hand closed on nothing, and there was no door that had never been there. Just my wall as I remembered it.</p><p>I let Jester lead me away, by the hand, as I attempted to try and explain. None of my words seemed to make sense, not in the way they’re doing now as I write this letter.<br/>
She showed me an ant, moving a large crumb of bread up the stairs. It truly was wonderful.</p><p>That night as I walked past her room to bed I could hear her muffled words. For the first time I can remember she sounded… upset. Scolding. I’m not proud that I pressed my ear to the door to listen.</p><p>‘That was not funny,’ she was saying. ‘You can do whatever you like to him but leave her alone.’</p><p>I heard some muffled talking, and assumed it was her, playing both roles in this little performance.</p><p>‘Of course she’s special, she’s my Momma.’ Was the reply.</p><p>More unintelligible whispering.</p><p>‘Well if you’ll be like that we won’t play anymore.’</p><p>There was silence for a moment, then something soft.</p><p>‘Awww I forgive you. Now, as for the new guy I have some ideas--”</p><p>She trailed off into conspiratorial whispers and I took my ear from the door. Twelve year olds have secrets, I told myself. This is normal.</p><p>By sixteen I was worried when she hadn’t outgrown her traveller, but at the time I was more worried about the Chateau, just business things and that sort of trouble and it ate up so much time. I’m not only a performer, but a businesswoman as well.<br/>
While I was looking into it, I realized something odd.</p><p> We had several clients who had visited quite regularly for years, and who had recently checked into an appointment but had never checked out. The only reason anyone seemed to notice was because their visits had stopped along with their payments. For a while we fretted over what to do, before deciding to call the police. It was a risky move but it would have been worse for the establishment’s reputation if someone found out that we hadn’t done anything as our customers disappeared. Understand our business isn’t illegal, but police rarely care about the difference and can be rather… callous to one such as myself.</p><p>They sent some officers to investigate, and they questioned the people who had seen the clients last. Some said that their client never showed up, and they had assumed there had been a cancellation or some sort of emergency. Others say their client had arrived, been serviced, and left their room.</p><p>The officers obviously didn’t know what to make of it, but as they continued to investigate my heart sank. I have gotten rather good at reading people over the years and could see in their eyes they believed us guilty. Not of these disappearances per say, but of something. Anything they could charge us for.</p><p>This continued for three days until I came into the waiting room, hearing shouting. One officer was making a commotion, and two others seemed to trying to calm him down. I went over to make sure my secretary was alright, as she seemed to be taking the brunt of this man’s assault. I asked what was the matter but the man was incoherent. He simply kept shouting, ‘I lost Louis,’.</p><p> Upon closer inspection I realized his face was unshaven, his uniform… dirty like he’d been wearing the same one all week. His eyes were manic and he stunk like he hadn’t showered in days.</p><p>I knew that was impossible because I had seen the man only yesterday, as he asked the same questions he always had, and turned my jewelry box upside down, like he’d somehow find something in there.</p><p>I also noticed his partner was missing. Four officers had come to investigate us. I only counted three. They radioed for backup and a manhunt was launched. It appears the officer’s partner really had gone missing, and no one could find him.</p><p>A few days later they had all gone. No more investigation, just like that. The last I saw of that poor man he was signing something offered by another officer. He had been raving about being lost, about mirrors and fractals.</p><p>It was only then I realized that Jester had been missing for almost the entire affair. I found her in the kitchen, helping herself to a treat, and asked if she had seen what had happened.</p><p>‘I think they just got lost,’ was her reply. ‘It’s really easy to get lost if you think you know where you’re going.’ I gently asked her where she thought they got lost.</p><p>She just smiled at me. Have my daughter’s eyes always been so many colors? What color did they used to be?</p><p>‘Who says they’re not still lost Momma?’ She asked, and licked frosting off the back of her hand. ‘Getting lost is so easy, getting found is hard. Plus, you only have to get really lost once.’</p><p>I hadn’t told her that there had been two officers. I don’t think anyone had.</p><p>She was twenty when I lost her, but she was still my child. My Jester. My little sapphire. Had she ever grown up? Had I not allowed her to? Or maybe she had, maybe she had a long time ago and I couldn’t see it. Do any of us really ever grow up? Or is it just a lie we tell the world, a lie we tell ourselves.</p><p>I woke up in the middle of the night, having been roused by her. It felt like I was dreaming, in that space between consciousness and sleep. ‘Jester?’ I asked, reaching for her.</p><p>‘I’m here Momma, I came to tell you I’m going away,’ she said, and her hand felt so… small in mine. Like a child’s hand.</p><p>‘Where are you going?’ I asked, not understanding.</p><p>I could feel her breath on my left ear as she spoke, but I heard her voice with my right. ‘I figured out the traveller Momma, I’m going to see him one last time,’</p><p>‘Oh’, I said, though I didn’t understand at all.</p><p>‘I love you,’ she promised.</p><p>‘I love you too,’ I echoed. Her hand was big now, like it should be, like an adult’s hand. It slipped from my grasp. I heard her footsteps echo in the room for a moment, and then the creaking sound. An opening door.</p><p>I don’t know how much time passed until it closed quietly. The entrance to my room does not creak. I fell back asleep.</p><p>I didn’t realize until the morning what had truly transpired. All of Jester’s things remained, her toys and clothes and art supplies. The police did nothing. I could do nothing. My daughter was gone and the only evidence she had ever existed remains in her old room, gathering dust.</p><p>I know you’ll think me crazy, but my daughter is not dead, and she is not gone entirely.</p><p>She leaves me drawings.</p><p>I find them under my pillow when I lay down for the night, or taped to the inside of the fridge when I open it for breakfast. One even appeared crumpled inside a locket I haven’t touched in almost a year.</p><p>I don’t know how they get there or what most of them mean. I’ve sent some with this letter, as proof, if you do believe me. She draws doors mostly. Spinning hallways. Some of them are frightening, portraits of people that look… marked, with jagged fractals. Them running away.</p><p>She also draws people who seem normal enough. There’s a man here, a firbolg, with odd pink hair. And a half orc gentleman, without any tusks. I’ve chosen to send a few of these portraits, as Jester’s labelled the backs of them. I think they’re her friends.</p><p>Is it wrong to be comforted by that fact? That she finally has people she can be friends with. Maybe so, but I will take whatever comfort I can find these days. I’ve felt so lied to, so often lately.</p><p>Maybe losing Jester is just another lie something’s told me. I don’t think that this time, I’ll believe it.</p><p>I understand your Institute looks into these sorts of things, and I hope that you do look into my daughter. I haven’t seen her since that night, but maybe you will. I hope you will.</p><p>If you do see her, please tell her her mother loves her very much. If you don’t, well… that might be for the best.</p><p>It’s very easy to get lost.</p><p>Statement ends.</p><p>This one is certainly strange, but holds up to investigation. The Lavish Chateau does indeed exist in Sweden, which is where Marrion Lavore sent this letter from.</p><p> Marrion Lavore is indeed a-- hm. She’s rather adored on several… erotic websites and message forums my assistants dug up. However I cannot find any public or private record of her having a daughter, or even proof of a Jester Lavore anywhere.</p><p>One part of this story seems to be true however. In a city paper dated five years ago, Mark Nikhib, a local police officer, lost his partner Louis Villion while investigating the Lavish Chateau for a string of disappearances tied to the location. In his statement to the press Mr. Nikhib attempted to give an account of his experience but instead descended quickly into rambling and nonsensical laughter.</p><p>He was discharged from the force, and not available for comment.</p><p>[PAPERS SHUFFLING]</p><p>Along with her letter Marion sent several drawings which she claims are from her daughter. Featured in these are fractals, seemingly endless hallways, and several portraits. They’re giving me a bit of a migraine to be honest. One appears to be of a tuskless half orc, bearing a striking resemblance to the description offered of Fjord by Sabian’s statement. Another features a woman with black and white hair, and differently colored eyes, who is not familiar.</p><p>I’ll look more into the portraits later.</p><p>There is one last item that was uncovered during the investigation of this statement.<br/>
A man unknown, but matching the description of the missing person’s report filed for the first disappearance at the Lavish Chateau was discovered roaming the streets of Portland. Oregon. Three years after the report was filed.</p><p>This man appeared to be mentally ill, and was taken to a nearby mental facility where he currently resides. He was unable to give his name or any other personal information, and seemed quite simply, completely mad.</p><p>The only reason I believe there to be a connection between Miss Lavorre and this man, despite the time and place differences, is the fact that the man in question had been tattooed, head to toe, in a rather familiar pattern of fractals.</p><p>The man seemed like he hadn’t bathed or shaved in quite a while--</p><p>[PAPERS SHUFFLING, A PAUSE, THEN MORE MOVEMENT]</p><p>What? What’s this-- this-- this drawing wasn’t here before it-- it’s. It’s me.</p><p>Ah… oh, uh, end recording.</p><p>[CLICK]</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Gallery</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I’ve gotten so many lovely comments from you all, and wanted to say thank you! Additionally some have asked if. Illy will get a chapter in this fic and unfortunately I don’t plan on it. There may however be an epilogue.</p><p>CW for this chapter: Abandonment, loneliness, unreliable time, isolation.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>[CLICK]</p><p>Statement of Cali Skyspeare, regarding a trip to the Louvre. Recording by Essek Theyless, Head Archivist of The Krynn Institute, London. </p><p>Statement begins.</p><p>I think art is supposed to be something you consume alone. You can discuss it with people of course, ponder on its meaning or craft. But that moment, when you look at a piece for the first time, you can be in a room of dozens and be completely alone. Just lost in that first moment of observation and discovery.</p><p>This is why I go to the museum by myself.</p><p>I’ve been to many, including the gallery in London, and I always enjoy the atmosphere. It makes me feel terribly sophisticated to be walking those cool marble hallways. I feel aloof, like if someone sees me then they’ll think for all the world that I’m as I appear; calm, collected, untouchable.</p><p>It’s why when I took my trip to Paris I scheduled the visit to the Louvre first, before anything else.</p><p>Did you know that you couldn’t view every exhibit there even if you spent a lifetime walking the hallways? It’s too big, and there’s just too much art to see.</p><p>It was raining when I got there. I was alone, of course, and began my self guided tour immediately. I took the path less travelled. Literally. I went out of my way to avoid the more touristy spots, the Mona Lisa, Starry Night, etcetera. I wanted to see the hidden gems on display, pay attention to whatever had been overlooked.</p><p>At first it was lovely. The atmosphere of the museum, the rain pattering down outside. It’s so big in there that a tour group would pass me by, turn the corner, and be swallowed up in the building. I knew, logically, that there must be thousands of visitors to the museum everyday, but the fact they were invisible to me was so… freeing. In a sort of sad way. Not that it made me sad, just aware of how much space there is between people. How you may never really close it.</p><p>I think that’s why it took me so long to notice something was wrong. </p><p>It felt maybe like I’d been there for… a little over half an hour? It’s hard to remember. I had turned off my phone so I wouldn’t be disturbed by work emails or texts, and there were no clocks in the museum. That’s when I realized that not only was I alone in the hallway, but I hadn’t seen anyone else in quite a while.</p><p>At first I shook it off, you know? It had to be anxiety. Like when the bus makes a wrong turn and you panic slightly, but eventually you get to your stop. I was simply in a less explored wing of the museum, and not seeing anyone was entirely normal. I kept on like that for another thirty, forty minutes maybe. Then I started to get a sinking feeling in my gut.</p><p>I began to walk, not run mind you, just walk into a new exhibit. No one was there either. I passed the windows that were still being rained upon, so much so that the view outside wasn’t clear, but I could see the twinkling lights of homes and businesses and street lamps.</p><p>I deviated completely from my planned route, twisting and turning throughout the museum, looking for someone, anyone, a security guard maybe or a gaggle of tourists who might know what was going on. There was nobody there.</p><p> I thought at first, maybe there was some sort of fire drill and they evacuated it, but if that was the case then why hadn’t I heard an alarm? Or maybe it had somehow become so late they closed. But with the rain outside I couldn’t tell the time. I tried to turn on my phone but it acted like it was dead. I couldn’t call from it or tell the time.</p><p>The art was still there. I spent several minutes after realizing my phone was dead to just stand and stare at the art in an effort to calm myself down.</p><p>That’s when I noticed something else strange. I didn’t pick up on it at first, as I passed paintings of bowls of fruit and forests and modern sculptures, because it was only in the pieces with people.</p><p>All the faces had turned away from me.</p><p>I know that sounds ridiculous, but I promise you my mental health has been stellar my entire life, I am not crazy. The people. In the paintings. Had turned away.</p><p>I knew because I had passed them earlier, I had felt unsettled whenever those oil paint eyes followed me, but now even the portraits had turned around. I could just see the backs of their heads. Entire parties had shifted, so when I looked at the scene, it felt like no one had noticed me. Not like I was being shunned, per say. Like I had become an uninteresting lamp in the corner of a room. Something that was a fixture. Forgotten.</p><p>It was here I really started to panic. I started calling out, my voice echoing on the marble floors and ceilings. ‘Hello’ I cried, and ‘Is there anyone out there?’. There wasn’t. I didn’t know how long I spent there, crying out. It felt like hours, days maybe. </p><p>I wandered the halls and knew they really were endless. I shouted long enough for my voice to grow hoarse, my throat parched. I took off my heels at some point, running desperately through the museum, looking for the exit, for anyone, for a painting that wouldn’t turn away from me.</p><p>That’s when I saw it. At first, just a raised edge at the end of one hallway. It surprised me, after so many identical hallways that I stopped in my tracks. I slowly went over to inspect it, unsure what I’d find. I realized it actually bordered the walls and ceiling as well, a beautiful gold color.</p><p> It was a giant frame.</p><p>At the realization, something cold started in my chest, and I stepped away from it, out of the hallway it was framing. I turned to start running again, and froze. There, at the end of the new hallway, was the same thing.</p><p>Just closer.</p><p>I ran, and every hallway I turned a new frame was there, framing me. I escaped them over and over and over again, running bruises into my feet, breathing so hard my lungs felt like they might burst. Every time I jumped over one, the next one however, was closer. They got bigger. More and more frame and less space to jump through. The walls were changing too-- I could see it out of the corner of my eyes. The shadows became less distinct, the paintings on the walls reduced to colorful spots. I could see the brushstrokes on my hands— no, making up my hands as I ran and ran and the frames just got smaller and I got slower.</p><p>In all this, as it was all coming over me I felt… furious. A single thought of how unfair this whole situation was burned through me with white hot rage. How dare the universe do this to me, what had I ever done to deserve this hell? I did not belong here, I did not do anything wrong godsdammit.</p><p>That’s when I ran straight into the woman. I hit her so hard it knocked me on my back actually. It hurt too, I was pretty sure for a second my nose was broken.</p><p>I heard her say. ‘Oh! Sorry,’ like I had bumped into her instead of colliding with her like a freight train. I sat up and stared at her. We were both in front a painting I couldn’t remember seeing before. A landscape of wildflowers I think, with a storm in the sky. The woman is what I actually remember though.</p><p> She was huge for one thing, over six feet tall, with wild black and white hair. I also noticed in that moment, her eyes were red rimmed like she’d been crying. That suddenly made me want to cry and so I just burst into tears, sitting on the floor of the Louvre barefoot. Like a child.</p><p>I felt, rather than saw her kneel over me. ‘You’re lost aren’t you?’ She said. ‘That’s my bad, I didn’t mean to. Honest.’.</p><p> I couldn’t really understand, but through my blubbering I managed to ask something along the lines of if she could help me.</p><p>She looked so sad when I met her eyes. So painfully sad that I honestly believed her when she said, ‘I can’t pull you out myself. You have to do it. There has to be something out there for you,’ and she nodded at one of the windows. It was still raining.</p><p>I still laid on the floor crying, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the frame. Lurking, waiting. </p><p>The woman was patient with me, she said ‘Come on, think of someone you love. Someone who loves you.’</p><p>I wracked my brain in a panic, almost forgetting about the woman entirely. It was strange, she was so large but her presence was so… soft. Forgettable. Was there anyone who loved me? Anyone I loved? I mentally flipped through coworkers and distant friends and neighbors with growing despair and certainty there was no one. </p><p>Then it hit me. ‘My brother,’ I said, the moment I realized. ‘I love my brother more than anything.’ </p><p>And it was true. We had moved apart over the years, becoming distant, but in that moment I knew with absolute clarity that he was who she was talking about.</p><p>The woman just stared at me with those mismatched eyes, one blue one a bruised purple. Then she said, like a secret she didn’t want someone else to hear, ‘Why don’t you go to him then?’.</p><p>I don’t remember getting off the floor but I remember running. As I did so new shapes appeared, people, surprised bystanders, a tour guide who had to jump out of my way as I sprinted until I hit the exit, slamming into the doors and dazedly stumbling out into the weak sunlight.</p><p>I was still holding my shoes in hand, as I turned my face towards the sky and realized the rain had stopped. People parted around me, giving me space as they entered the museum. I suddenly realized I was freezing, chilled all the way through as if I had been standing in a meat locker for hours.</p><p>I sat down on the damp steps outside the museum and called my brother. My phone was working now, but the time on it said barely an hour had passed. He was surprised when I called him out of the blue, and even more alarmed when I broke down crying. </p><p>I’m staying with him now, in London, just for a few weeks. I’m pretty sure he thinks I had a psychotic break. I told him a little about what had happened and he suggested I come and make a statement here.</p><p>What happened to me was horrible, but strangely enough I feel safe, after everything. I figure as long as I keep my brother close and avoid museums I’ll be alright. Besides, the woman in that museum knew what was going on. Maybe next time I’m in trouble she’ll show up.</p><p>Like a guardian angel.</p><p>Statement ends.</p><p>Now this one is interesting. It’s not everyday you meet a sympathetic avatar of the Lonely, but it seems Ms. Yasha is just that, if this statement is to be believed.</p><p>My assistants found this when we went on physical descriptions of the portraits sent by Ms. Lavorre. Yasha seems to be part of a group of diverse avatars who’ve formed an alliance, however the purpose of said alliance remains a mystery.</p><p>Further investigation into the statement itself was quite futile. Hundreds of people go into and out of the Louvre everyday so trying to find Yasha on some sort of list would be… beyond tedious. There is however one item of note that I discovered upon research. While going over some of the Louvre’s electronically available collection I believe I’ve discovered the painting that’s mentioned in the statement.</p><p> It is indeed a landscape full of wildflowers, with a sky full of storm clouds. The painting is titled ‘Elopement’ but there is no artist’s name or year of creation listed. Additionally, I’ve noticed one detail the statement giver missed in her recollection. The field is not empty, as off in the distance are two figures.</p><p>Two women, one with white hair on the left that could be Yasha, and one with brown hair and a darker complexion on the right. They stand holding hands, facing each other. I can’t tell if this is the artist’s intention or a strange effect of the painting, but it almost looks like-- the way the storm clouds curl at the left figure’s back, give her the appearance of wings.</p><p>End recording.</p><p>[CLICK]</p>
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<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Laid to Rest</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This one goes out to that one commenter that asked me not to do the Buried. Sorry bud. CW for this chapter include: graveyards, car accidents, sleepwalking, deep holes, unwittingly performing actions, mentions of being buried alive.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>[CLICK]</p><p>Statement of Angela Castallo, regarding an encounter with a grave keeper. Recording by Essek Theyless, Head Archivist of The Kryn Institute, London. Statement begins.</p><p>You’re going to think poorly of me. There’s no way around it, but at this point I can hardly hold this pencil much less give two damns what you people think. You can’t help me. No one can. I’m not sure if I want anyone to try anymore.</p><p>I rob graves.</p><p>I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not an archeologist or a freak. It’s just about the money. People will bury their nana with hundreds of dollars worth of jewelry, and it would just sit there rotting. The waste of it all.</p><p>I got into this with some pals of mine a while back, when we were about to get evicted from our apartment and needed some money fast. It was Grey’s nan that we dug up first actually. Her wedding ring went for so much that we were able to pay the rent and then some.</p><p>This isn’t what I do for a living, it’s just something we do when money gets too tight. Believe me, the last thing I want to be doing at 3 am on a weekend is being waist deep in someone’s grave, but the money is too easy to pass up and we’ve never been caught.</p><p>Well, until recently that is.</p><p>It was supposed to be a simple job but Puett screwed it up. We have a system that we’ve been using for almost three years now. Go to a graveyard, never the same one as last time, and walk around, looking mournful. Usually I go with Grey, or carry around flowers to make me look less suspicious. We scope out any freshly dug graves. We can’t dig up someone who’s been down there for years. Not only does the thought make me gag, but the ground is too hard packed to dig into. But a fresh grave has dirt that’s newly laid, still soft enough to get a shovel into.</p><p>If there’s a fresh grave, then we come back at night. We bring shovels and hop the gate. The security guards usually stay in their little posts, but we still have to work fast and keep quiet. We dig up the casket, grab the goods, then try to leave everything like we found it, fill in the hole. Usually if the security guard notices in the morning, they’ll just try to fix it up. If anyone found out they’d get fired, and besides we’re not really hurting anything.</p><p>Simple. Until the last job.</p><p>Puett staked out this one, and called up me, Grey, and Pepper out of the blue. He said he had found a fresh grave, in a place we hadn’t hit before, and that he was ready to get it tonight. Like an idiot, I packed up my gear. Grey picked me up in his car around 1 am and we drove over.</p><p>Ironically, this was actually one of the least spooky graveyards I’d seen. All graveyards are a little spooky at night, but this one seemed less… traditional. It was smaller for one thing, the buildings and offices around it penning in it, like a sad little garden. Trees and flowers grew wild over the fences and around the graves, the whole thing illuminated by the street lamps. It was weird, like someone had deposited a small jungle in the center of London. I could just make out the sign in front of the little cottage where I assumed the caretakers did services. ‘The Blooming Grove’. I remember thinking it was a nice name for a funeral home. The lights in the building were off.</p><p>Grey stayed in the car. He was our getaway driver in case security heard us and we had to make a quick escape. Pepper, Puett and I snuck into the graveyard. The fence was only waist high so it was an easy jump. We kept looking around for security or bystanders but the night was silent.</p><p>Puett led us to the fresh grave she’d seen. As we walked along the path, paved with garden stones, I noticed a lot of these headstones look old, some covered with ivy so their names were obscured, or sticking out of the ground at weird angles. I figured it may be a poor cemetery that couldn’t afford proper maintenance. The flowers and trees were nice though. Made it feel more like a park then a cemetery.</p><p>We reached the grave Puett had found and immediately I figured this would be a bust. The location was nice, in the back of the cemetery under a big willow tree. The patch of ground was soft churned earth yes, but there was no headstone.</p><p>I pointed this out and Puett got defensive, claiming maybe they hadn’t gotten the headstone yet, but he had seen someone filling it that morning. I knew then that we might as well dig because even if this was a bust then at least I’d be able to shove it in his stupid face.</p><p>Pepper kept lookout while Puett and I dug, keeping a rope handy for when we needed out of the hole. Between the two of us we made fast time. That and the soil was so loose and soft, like some kind of high quality planting soil but less… processed. We dug down two feet, four feet, five, when I noticed something weird. There weren’t any night sounds.</p><p>I don’t mean the traffic, but in cemeteries with plants and things you’re able to hear crickets and insects and night birds. One time an owl scared the shit out of Pepper and we still teased her for it. But it was silent here. Completely quiet except for the sound of our shovels digging into the ground.</p><p>Then we hit something.</p><p>Well I hit something, and knew immediately that something was wrong. I was expecting the hard impact of my shovel on a wooden casket, but what I hit was soft. Much too soft. I told Puett to stop digging and knelt down to scrape all the dirt off whatever we’d found. My first thought was that it was a casketless-burial. It’s a new thing, supposed to be better for the environment, but it meant this person probably didn’t have anything valuable.</p><p>Puett had gotten Pepper to lower the rope already to get out and give me some space. I realized what I had hit with my shovel was a boot. As I went up the body, brushing dirt away, I saw loose fitting clothes, a long thin frame. I saw a glint of something like metal, at the center of where it’s chest would be. I reached for it.</p><p>But the hand stopped me first.</p><p>It reached up and closed around my wrist, the light fur on the arm caked with earth, with just enough firm pressure to squeeze. I’m pretty sure I froze, because I remember watching with mute horror as the eyes of the still face opened.</p><p>The body sat up, still holding my wrist, dust falling in rivulets from his face. He smiled at me, clean white teeth appearing a mud caked visage, pink eyes piercing my soul. He blinked once, and the dead man said, ‘Well that was rude of you.’ And that’s when I started screaming.</p><p>I’m I threw myself at the walls of the grave, clawing at it and only managing to pull more dirt down on myself before Puett and Pepper grabbed me by the shoulders and hauled me out, the three of us tearing through the graveyard at a breakneck sprint to the car. We jumped in, scattering grave dirt everywhere and screaming at Grey to drive. We must’ve startled him so bad it took him a minute of fumbling with the keys to get the car to start.</p><p>I heard Pepper scream on my left and I turned towards her window to see the graveyard.</p><p>Under the street light at its entrance stood the buried man. He was caked head to toe in that rich soil, dust falling off him in rivulets. He had fur, was seven feet tall, and I could still see those pink eyes from here. He just raised a hand, easily, and waved at us as the car’s engine turned over. Like we were friends that had come for a visit, and were now leaving. I think he said something, but at that point we were screeching away out of the parking lot and down the street.</p><p>Gray wouldn’t have believed us if he hadn’t seen the man under the streetlamp. We didn’t know what to do. We couldn’t tell anyone.</p><p>They dropped me back off at my apartment. I took a shower that was an hour longer than usual. I went to bed.</p><p>In my dreams I was digging. Deeper and deeper into rich black soil, standing alone in a field of whistling grass. I didn’t stop, and it was almost like I was aware of time passing. I dug until the hole above me was a distant skylight, the wind undetectable. I knew, somewhere, in dream logic, that there was something waiting for me if I kept digging. Something very deep.</p><p>I was awoken by a police siren passing down the street. I stood in the small garden behind my apartment building. I was standing in a six foot deep hole I had dug directly into my neighbor’s tomato patch.</p><p>I freaked out of course. I managed to get out of the hole with handholds and footholds in the dirt. I was still in my sleep ware, and holding the shovel I had put away last night. Luckily no one had seen me, I woke up around 8 am on a weekend so most people were sleeping in. I got a call once I had stopped shaking on the bathroom floor. It was Grey, hysterical over the fact he had apparently woken up in his mom’s backyard, after digging a giant hole.</p><p>All of us had done the same thing in our sleep. All of us had the same dream.</p><p>We met up in my apartment, to debate what to do. Pepper was of the opinion that we should simply stay awake for as long as we could. We drank enough coffee to make our hearts explode but we were all still exhausted. It was the digging that made us more and more tired even as we slept.</p><p>We tried everything.</p><p>We strapped Grey down with belts to the bed. When he slept, he simply sat up and undid them with half closed eyes. Ropes he managed to untie, and when he couldn’t get the chains we used off of him, he just rolled over face into the pillow. If we hadn’t turned him over and woken him up then he would’ve suffocated.</p><p>After three days we fell into a sort of buddy system. One person would sleep and the other would watch, they would follow them and wake them up if the hole they were digging got too deep.</p><p>I was over at Pepper’s place. We were both exhausted, but it was my turn to sleep. It was my turn. What happened to her wasn’t my fault.</p><p>It was the screaming that woke me up actually, car horns blaring. I had been digging in the flower beds of Pepper’s building, but no one was paying attention to me.<br/>
Pepper had tried to cross the street. To the park, with its grass and trees and soft earth. She hadn’t noticed the light signals and there was a car that couldn’t stop in time. We lost Pepper. She was still holding the shovel.</p><p>I drove to Puett’s house immediately, my vision swimming, every bone aching. I just wanted to sleep, actually sleep. I wandered his house in a daze before I realized I couldn’t find Puett or Gray anywhere.</p><p>With growing dread I went to the backyard.</p><p>Gray was standing there, shovel in hand, but something else was wrong. The hole that looked freshly filled, the one he was standing over, he was smoothing his shovel over it in repetitive motions, patting the earth down. Like he had buried something.</p><p>I woke him up, shouting, asking where Puett was. He looked at me in surprise and then at the filled hole, and I knew. He started digging again, desperate, crying, but I just sat down in the grass. I was too tired for tears.</p><p>I left him like that. Still trying to claw up the dirt and get out a long dead Puett. I drove without aim, without stopping. Then I saw it, out of the corner of my eye. The Blooming Grove.</p><p>I remember stumbling through the gates, and seeing them there. The firbolgs. They were having… a tea party it looked like. A whole group of them, with platter of fruit and tea cups spread out on colorful quilts, all turning to me slowly, with easy smiles and pink hair.</p><p>I remember crying then, a cup of tea put into my hands. I was so tired, I told them.</p><p>The one I remembered, the buried man, looked at me sympathetically.  But I knew he wouldn’t save me. It was the look you gave a dying plant, or a confused child. ‘Why don’t you go finish up any business you still have,’ he said, taking the tea from me. ‘Then come back. We’ll put you to rest.’</p><p>I felt terror and relief in equal measure as I thanked him, and wandered away. I ended up here somehow. I wanted to tell someone I think. About Pepper and Gray and the buried man. But now that I’ve done it I think I’m ready. I’m so tired.</p><p>I want to be laid to rest.</p><p>Statement ends. </p><p>[SIGH]</p><p>Well that was tiring.</p><p>This is the only statement we could find that contained mention of a firbolg, like the one included in the portraits sent by Ms. Lavorre. Unless there is another pink haired firbolg avatar in London I believe him to be Caduceus Clay of the Clay family.</p><p>The Blooming Grove was an easily locatable establishment. They specialize in natural burials and have existed for quite a while. I discouraged my assistants from approaching the place directly after what happened to Ms. Castello but apparently while taking pictures of it in the parking lot, they were invited in... for tea.</p><p>They came back in one piece so I can’t really complain I suppose. Apparently they chatted with Caduceus, about modern embalming practices and decent vegetarian restaurants in the area. At the time they found him, he was having tea with a tan skinned human woman, who apparently excused herself.</p><p>I suppose when entering a household full of buried avatars this is the best possible outcome.</p><p>Pepper Mintel did indeed die in a vehicular manslaughter accident, according to public record. Puett Green is still considered missing. Interestingly it seems Grey’s mother also reported her son missing. I hope she doesn’t intend to plant anything in her backyard soon.</p><p>While her manager declared her missing, I think I know the fate of Angela Castello. During their chat with Mr. Clay, my assistants were shown around the so called garden, and snapped a few photos. Under a willow tree in the back of the cemetery there seems to be a plot of freshly churned earth, planted with thriving red and purple flowers. The headstone above it bears her name.</p><p>End recording.</p><p>[CLICK]</p>
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<a name="section0007"><h2>7. The Velveteen Rabbit</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hey guys! Sorry this is late, the holidays were crazy. Thanks for all your support so far. Keep your eyes open, I may add an epilogue! This chapter contains very minor spoilers for critical role. CW for this chapter: gore mention, sleep deprivation, being watched, choking, burning, violence, and mentions of harm to children.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>[CLICK]</p><p>Statement of Tony Lucinni, regarding an encounter with a children’s book he purchased. Recording by Essek Theyless, Head Archivist of The Krynn Institute, London. </p><p>Statement begins.</p><p>I really liked the Velveteen Rabbit. You know, as a kid. I’m 22 now and a little old for kids stories, but it was my favorite book growing up. That’s why I thought it’d be a good gift for my nephew. This was going to be my Christmas present for him. I figured I could just mail the package off to my sister so she could wrap it up.</p><p>I’m not glad I found that book, but I’m even more thankful I didn’t send it off before reading it. Who knows what might’ve happened.</p><p>I found it at a local bookstore. I didn’t go looking for anything haunted I swear, it was just tucked there with all the other children’s literature. It was a picture book, big, squarish, and yellow. It seemed used and had that old paper smell to it. I didn’t open it there because the little charming drawing on the front cover assured me it was the Velveteen Rabbit. I got it for half price. I thought I was lucky.</p><p>I didn’t even think to read it until I got home from shopping that evening. I was in my dorm, and settled on the bunk to flip through it. Both for nostalgia’s sake, and the thought that there might be damage on the pages and I may need to take it back.</p><p>Now, if you don’t know the story of the Velveteen Rabbit, this is how it goes. Once upon a time there’s a stuffed rabbit who’s well beloved by the boy who owns him. The Skin Horse, another toy, tells the rabbit that if the boy loves him enough he’ll get worn out as toys do, but he’ll become real. Eventually someone ends up having to burn all the kid’s stuff because he got scarlet fever, but the rabbit becomes real just in the nick of time and lives happily ever after.</p><p>This was not that story.</p><p>It started out normal enough. I thought the art style was a bit ugly, but figured it was just modernization or something. The illustrations were somewhat lumpy and the colors differed in depth like they’d been poorly inked by hand. The boy got the rabbit as a gift and loved him very much. There were illustrations of them playing, several pages without text of the rabbit and boy frolicking in fields and at the dinner table and things.</p><p>Things got weird during the talk with the Skin Horse though. When the rabbit is afraid of looking old and worn like the Skin Horse, the Skin Horse is supposed to tell the rabbit that being worn means being loved and being loved makes you real.</p><p>The Skin Horse here said, ‘Oh Rabbit, you will never be real, you are a toy. We will never be real, but we can be alive.’</p><p>The rabbit asked, ‘How can I be alive?’</p><p>The Skin Horse replied, ‘The Boy is alive. He has skin and blood and a beating heart. He has a smile and voice and a name. To be alive, you must take these from him. You must take it all.’ The Skin Horse’s mouth hung open, horrible, and black ink seemed to spatter out of it.</p><p>At this point I was confused, but kept reading. The next page didn’t have any text, just the rabbit standing outside the boy’s bedroom. An open window shed moonlight on the scene.</p><p>The next page was the rabbit inside the door of the bedroom, facing the boy while he slept. Then it sat at the foot of his bed. Then on his chest.</p><p>The next illustrations were horrible. It… it crawled inside his mouth, down his throat, choking him from the inside out. I flipped through pages of him tearing at his throat, then his chest, then he fell still, eyes wide. The next page startled me so bad I dropped the book.</p><p>It was so vivid compared to the previous illustrations, a full two page spread of what looked like the Velveteen Rabbit. It was covered in gore and… smiling straight at me.<br/>I kicked it across the room.</p><p>At the time I was convinced there had just been a mix up. Someone must have dug this out of the horror shelf and put it in the children’s section as a practical joke.<br/>I looked up ‘Velveteen Rabbit Horror Story’ and ‘Scary Velveteen Rabbit’ but just got some edgy reimaginings of kids stories. None of the illustrations there looked like what was in my book anyway. The bookshop was closed so I resolved to return it tomorrow.</p><p> I had the dorm all to myself that night, so no one had seen me get spooked. This was during winter break, and my roommate had gone home for the holidays. My mum and dad lived pretty close to my uni, so I had been planning on staying in the dorm for the break and going over to their place just for Christmas. I was enjoying my own space.<br/>I watched a few videos to get the image out of my mind, and went to bed.</p><p>In the morning, everything seemed normal. I even forgot about the book which I had shoved deep in one of my desk drawers. At least until I opened the door to go get breakfast at the cafe.</p><p>There, right outside my door, was the Velveteen Rabbit. I know this sounds like I’m making it up but I’m dead serious. It wasn’t even a foot tall, but it scared me so bad I fell back on my arse.</p><p>It looked like it had been through hell. Or originated there. It was lumpy and bulging in places it shouldn’t have been, the thick stitching that kept it together looked more like sinew than thread. It’s outside covering was wrinkled and stained with various layers of black, looking like old tanned leather. It’s face was the worst for sure. Tiny black button eyes, ears crinkled like beef jerky and an awful smile. It looked like real chunks of ivory were sown in where its mouth would be.</p><p>My initial terror gave way to rationalization. It had to be a joke. That was the only explanation. Someone was just playing a trick on me. Maybe I was on a prank show of some kind. But… no one showed up with cameras. And most of my neighbors weren’t home, all gone for the break. I didn’t want anyone to see the rabbit though, in case they thought it was mine.</p><p>I dug up a dustpan and some trash bags. I didn’t want to touch the thing with my hands. I’m glad I didn’t. When I scooped it onto the dust pan, it felt oddly heavy.<br/>I put it in my room’s trash bin. I stared at it for a good minute before I took the trash out and threw it in the dorm’s dumpster.</p><p>I tried to go about my day like normal. I got breakfast, tried reading, and texted my sister that I was going to be late with the gift. However I was incurably jumpy. I was suspicious of everyone on campus. Who could’ve left that rabbit? Who might’ve known? </p><p>I then remembered I was going to return the book today, but checking the bookstore’s schedule revealed they were closed on the weekends. I would have to wait two days.<br/>I resolved myself. I was an adult. I would not be scared of some spooky stories, stuffed animal included or otherwise.</p><p>I kept googling the book though. I tried every variation of ‘Scary’ and ‘Velveteen Rabbit’ I could think of but nothing turned up. I figured I had some sort of self published, rare collectible item or something. I was wrong.</p><p> I didn’t tell anyone about what had happened. They might think I was crazy, especially since I had thrown out the evidence. I settled down to sleep that night, rather uneasily. I stared out the peephole of my door for a while before going to bed.</p><p>Again, I slept. I woke up. I turned towards the door and let out a rather loud shriek. Inside my room, about a foot away from the door, was the Velveteen Rabbit.</p><p>This time I really panicked. I went around it and out into the hallway, knocked on the closest doors, demanding to know who’d put it there. The few students who I woke up either didn’t know what I was talking about or slammed the door in my face.</p><p>I went back to my room.</p><p>It just sat there, on my rug, grinning. I knew I had thrown it out yesterday. Had it somehow gotten out of the garbage? There was no rubbish or anything on it. It looked just as ugly as it had yesterday. I still didn’t want to touch it.</p><p>I was fed up with it now, pissed actually. I put it in a paper bag and drove to the outskirts of campus. I sat in my car for a while, scrolling on various social media sites looking for anything relating to the book I found. In desperation, I made my own post. I didn’t mention the freaky stuff happening in case someone thought it was a joke. I just talked about the book.</p><p>I took the bag with the rabbit in it, and went to the gardening club’s shed. I borrowed their shovel and dug a hole out in an empty lot, where no one could find the stupid thing. For extra measure I put it four feet deep. I returned the shovel and drove back to my dorm.</p><p>At this point I didn’t think anyone was messing with me. I reread the book, hoping for answers, but I just got the same story. Rabbit waits outside. Rabbit goes in. Rabbit sits at the foot of the bed. The boy dies.</p><p>I had gotten a few comments on my post by now, mostly people either linking me the wrong thing or asking me for pictures. There was one user though, Xpositor, that had a few questions. ‘Where did you find it?’. I told them I bought it at a seemingly normal bookstore. ‘Does it have a brass nameplate in the front?’ I thought that was weirdly specific, but I checked. Sure enough behind the front cover was a faded brass plate that I hadn’t noticed in my previous read. ‘From the Library of’... Halles? Halas? I think. It was hard to make out.</p><p>I told them they were right, and asked them how they knew. They opened up a private message channel.</p><p>Their next question didn’t answer mine. ‘Where do you live?’. I was incredulous. I wasn’t going to tell some random stranger where I was. I told them so. ‘Has anything strange happened?’ they asked. That gave me pause. Were they involved somehow? How else could they know? The next message came fast.</p><p>‘If you don’t tell me where you are it will kill you.’</p><p>I stared at the screen for a while after that. I was scared, and I was angry. Sure the rabbit was terrifying but I wasn’t just about to give out personal information. What if this got out? People might think I’m crazy. I certainly felt more than a little crazy.</p><p>They messaged me a few more times but I just lay there on my bed, frozen with indecision and fear.</p><p>I eventually noticed the late hour, and decided to stay awake as long as I possibly could. Then maybe I’d see how the rabbit kept coming back. The hours crept past as I scrolled on my phone, looking to the door every minute, listening to music, reading, trying to keep myself awake. But at some point I guess my eyes drifted shut. It couldn’t have been more than an hour or two. I blinked awake in the morning light, before screaming, and kicking the Velveteen Rabbit off the foot of my bed.</p><p>It landed with a dull thud on my floor, still looking up at me with those black button eyes.</p><p>I just laid there for a while, staring at it and shaking. What else could I do? Where could I go? Eventually, I picked up my phone again. I had a dozen or so messages from Xpositor. The most recent ones were cussing me out. I told them everything. All about the book and what was happening, and I prayed they weren’t joking. That they could help me.</p><p>There was an awful period of ten minutes before they replied. They gave me a specific set of instructions. They would need my address, which at this point I gave. Then they said I would have to take the rabbit somewhere far away, to ‘buy myself some time’. I ended up driving to a bridge overlooking the river, and tossed it in there. It felt futile, but at least it got rid of the thing for a while.</p><p>The last part of the instructions were the hardest. They told me to stay awake, no matter what. They would come help me, but they’d have to get some things together first.<br/>They didn’t say when, and I didn’t want to tell them I had already tried that. I was still exhausted from my previous attempt, and shaken up badly. I knew they were right though. I would have to stay awake. Or else.</p><p>As the sun set I drank enough caffeine to kill me. I cranked my music up, hoping the noise would keep me awake and possibly alert Xpositor to where I was. </p><p>The hours ticked by. I pinched myself as the playlist cycled from hard rock to something softer, but I was too exhausted to change it. Even though I’d only been awake for a day, the stress and terror made me feel like I’d been up for three.</p><p>It was around 2 am when I started to lose hope. What if no one came? What if they were too late? Maybe I had given them the wrong directions, maybe they got lost on campus. I wanted to lie down and cry, but I just sat there. Staring at the door and waiting.</p><p>I think I… blinked. That’s all it was just a slow blink, when I saw the shadow cast under the gap in my door. I closed my eyes again, rubbing at them to make sure I wasn’t seeing things and when I opened them it was there. The Velveteen Rabbit had appeared inside my door.</p><p>I froze, locked in a staring contest with it. I knew if I blinked, if I flinched, it would get closer again. Like in a nightmare. I kept my eyes open as wide as they could go, tears gathering at the corners of them. It just sat there, misshapen and smiling at me. So patient.</p><p>I heard the door handle begin to wiggle like someone was trying to open it, and some knocking. My breath caught. In all my panic I had forgotten to unlock the door. Now Xpositor was out there while I was in here, helpless.</p><p>I called out, I told them it was in here with me. I heard muffled cursing and out of the corner of my eye I saw the door handle to my room start to… melt. I smelled the awful scent of burning metal and my eyes teared up more. I had to blink again.</p><p>When I did, the rabbit reappeared at the foot of my bed. I tried to jump up, but I found myself paralyzed, like this was a night terror, laying half on my back as the rabbit stared at me.</p><p>The door finally swung open and I saw her. Xpositor.</p><p>She had an intense face, tan skin, close cropped brown hair. She had on a hoodie and backpack which looked like it had a baseball bat sticking out of it. She crept into the room, and I noticed another figure standing in the doorway. She must’ve brought backup. She was holding what looked like a duffel bag, as she moved towards me slowly, so painfully slowly. I wanted to scream at her to hurry and do something but my throat was stuck too.</p><p>Tears dripped down my face as my eyes flicked between her and the rabbit. Once she got to the side of my bed she made eye contact, then looked at the rabbit. Slowly, she started to lower the open mouth of the bag over the rabbit, which was still sitting deceptively still.</p><p>Until it wasn’t.</p><p>Once the bag was about halfway over its head it lunged. I don’t even know how to describe the way it moved. All its limbs flailed, that terrible stitched smile in its face ripped open as it screamed and scrambled forward towards my face with an unimaginable speed.</p><p>But Xpositor was faster.</p><p>She snatched it with one hand once it got to my chest and squeezed its swollen little body. I could see what looked like guts and viscera ooze out of its mouth as it gurgled and flailed, the actual human teeth stitched into its face gnashing. She tossed it into the bag and snapped the opening shut, the whole thing squirming, muffling the shrieking.</p><p>The woman brought it over her head and slammed it against the floor, once, twice, with a violence I wasn’t expecting. The screaming trailed off into weak gurgles as she looked around the dorm and met my eye again.</p><p>‘The book,’ she asked, frantic. ‘Where is it?’</p><p>Stumbling to my feet I went to the desk and dug it out. The bag was still moving sluggishly. I finally got a good look at the person waiting in the door. He was wearing a coat and looked impossibly dirty, with red hair and blue eyes. He just watched the whole thing like it was boring.</p><p>I handed her the book with trembling hands and she took it, putting it under one arm and bolting out my door. The man watched me for another moment before turning and following her. I was left panting, still leaning on the desk.</p><p>Was that it? Was I just supposed to… stay here? Go about my night as normal? Absolutely not. I followed them a moment after.</p><p>I found them in the building’s parking lot. They had set the bag on fire and were just watching it burn and listening to it wail. It sounded like a bag full of cats and hawks being put through a meat grinder.</p><p>They noticed me as I approached and the woman asked me what I was doing.</p><p>‘I just need to see it gone,’ I answered. She just nodded and turned back to the fire. I felt a little stupid for not trying to burn it earlier, but something about this fire… it seemed entirely focused on the rabbit, leaving scorch marks on the concrete as it tried to crawl away, putting out none of the flames. The book was burning too, that brass nameplate curling in the flames.</p><p>We must’ve stood there for an hour watching it burn. None of us spoke. Wordlessly the dirty guy turned away and started walking. The woman handed me a business card. She told me to call her if anything like this happened again. Before I could ask any other questions they walked to the side of the building and opened up a maintenance door, going in.</p><p>I looked down at the business card. It was a deep blue. ‘Beauregard Lionett’, it read, with a phone number below that and nothing else.</p><p>When I looked up again at the door they went through, it was gone. There was no trace they ever existed, except the scorch marks on the concrete and the card in my hands.<br/>I don’t even know why I’m telling you this. Maybe as a warning? In case that book ever turns up again. Or to let other people know that there’s help if this sort of thing happens to you.</p><p>I haven’t seen anything weird since. Life keeps going on like normal. With luck I’ll never have to call the number on the business card.</p><p>I got my nephew a football for Christmas this year. My sister was a little mad, said she was hoping I’d give him something educational. I almost laughed.</p><p>Books are overrated.</p><p>Statement ends.</p><p>It appears sometimes these do have a happy ending. Mr. Lucinni was available for followup, and appears to be in good health. He allowed my assistants to take a photo of the business card he claims is from Ms. Lionett but the images are corrupted. He refused to part with it for evidence collection purposes.</p><p>The thing that puzzles me most about this statement is that Ms. Lionett, while apparently allied with several avatars including Mr. Widogast, seems to have no entity she herself is connected to. I could theorize there is some influence of the Eye over her investigatory nature, but other than that she seems to be an independent party. I shall make a note not to underestimate her. Anyone who burns books from Hallas’ Folding Halls as a hobby is not to be trifled with.</p><p>I still have so many unanswered questions about this group. Their motives, origins, long term goals, all of it is a mystery. It’s not one I intend on giving up on anytime soon.</p><p>End recording.</p><p>[CLICK]</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Comments and kudos are appreciated! ❤️</p></blockquote></div></div>
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